The Med-volution

R is in transition again. His meds are like that. This time, though, we also have a new doctor. The new doc is reviewing R’s charts and has made the following changes:

• The Risperdal is done. We’ve been using this one since 2004,
• The clonidine sleep aid, in use since 2004 also, is being replaced with something similar but safer.

The impact over the last two weeks? Good. R is so present, so in the moment. He’s helpful, courteous, he’s sensitive, he plans ahead. He seems to recognize the tension in someone else’s voice and feels the tension himself. He hates the ‘drill sergeant’ tone of voice that, before,  was required  just to get through to him. Now? Not so much.

A year ago, we switched his ADD med, and our kid came back from the brink. It was an improvement, but there were still some issues. Now, though, as the Risperdal slowly flushes from his system, we’re getting a kid who…. acts like a kid.

Even as recently as a month or so, I would regularly find myself telling him that he needed to start acting his age, and to stop acting seven. Hmmm… only now do I realize that he was seven when he started using the Risperdal? And that as soon as the Risperdal is gone, he starts acting more like his age? I should have known. It’s my fault for not seeing that connection for myself already.

R’s people skills are much, much better. R’s fencing is now rather passionate and interested. R is diving in to his boy scout activities, and he’s already reading next years’ math texts in his spare time. He’s behaving more like a kid with a 150 IQ would be expected to behave. And that’s a good thing. He’s getting lots of positive reinforcement. He’s being taken seriously and treated with great credibility. And he should, because when he is able to express himself, he usually has a LOT to share, at a very high caliber.

And, today was the school Design Competition day. R and I built a small trebuchet for the trebuchet competition. It’s his first go-round on the trebuchet competition. We’re prepared to participate but not place very high, then learn from the experience for next year. R can wrap his emotions around such a strategy now…before? No way.

I’m proud of him. I like having a twelve year old boy in my life.